Three Headstones
by JewelGirl94
Summary: Edward, Bella, and Nessie go to Chicago and visit the graves of Edward’s parents, as well as his own. Post BD. Cannon pairings. One shot.


**Disclaimer: As much as I wish I owned Twilight (especially Edward ;)), I don't. It makes me very sad. :(**

**Three Headstones**

**EPOV**

"Guess what!" Alice sang, bouncing into our cottage.

"Can you tell us quietly, please, Alice? Renesmee is asleep," I said.

"You guys are no fun, you know that? Anyway, we're moving to New Hampshire!" she squealed.

"Seriously?" Bella asked from her position snuggled against my side. Alice nodded vigorously.

"And there's going to be a layover in Chicago," she said.

"Isn't that cool, Edward? You get to visit your home!" Bella said.

"That's not true, love. For me, home is wherever you are," I told her, kissing her head.

"Aw! Bella, you turned Edward into a softie!" Alice said.

"Hey! Don't call my man a softie! Just the other day he wrestled a mountain lion, and don't even get me started on—"

"Stop talking, Bella, please! I don't need know how my brother is in bed. That's just to much information!" Alice begged.

I tuned them out as they bickered, and concentrated on my own thoughts while I traced random circles on Bella's arm.

I hadn't been to Chicago in over eighty years—the last conscious thought I had there was in the hospital before I passed out for the last time. When I had woken up as a vampire, I was in Carlisle's house by the woods, outside the city limits.

I hadn't even gone to see my own grave; it was too dangerous for me to go that close to the city as a newborn. Carlisle had only left me once—to wrap up some things at the hospital, and he had stolen me some of my things from my old house before everything was taken by the state—and even that had almost been a disaster. I had almost eaten the motorist that happened to drive past the house.

Maybe I could go see my parent's and my graves…and my own. That would be so strange, to stand perfectly healthy—aside from the whole being a vampire thing—and stare down at your own grave, knowing that the casket beneath you feet was empty and meant to be holding your dusty remains.

"What are you planning, Edward?" Alice's voice broke through my thoughts; I shook myself, trying to bring my thoughts back to the present.

"Huh? Oh, I was just thinking," I told her.

"What were you thinking about, baby?" my Bella asked.

"Just that, while we had a layover in Chicago, I might go see my grave," I told them.

"That's a great idea, Edward! I can't wait to see it!" Alice exclaimed.

"Er, I was actually thinking that it would just be me, Bella and Nessie, Alice," I said. "Just us, as a family, you know?"

She zoned out for a minute, and I saw her vision—the outcome of what would happen if she forced me to let her come with us. It wasn't pretty.

"Fine. I would like to keep all of my limbs, so I'll keep out of it. See you guys tomorrow!" Alice said as she ran out the door, leaving Bella and myself in peace.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Are you sure you want to do this, Edward?" Esme asked me as Bella, Nessie, and I stood to get off the plane. The rest of our family remained seated, to fly to New Hampshire. We would follow as soon as we did the things we wanted—needed—to do in the Chicago area.

"I need to do this," I said. "Ever since I got the idea, I haven't been able to get it out of my head. It's always been in the back of my mind, no matter what I'm doing."

"See you in New Hampshire, then, son," Carlisle said. Everybody said good-bye, and Bella, Nessie and I made our way off the plane.

"Are you positive you want Nessie and me there, Edward? We don't have to come if you don't want us to," my beautiful Bella said. I grabbed her hand and pulled her off the plane with me, Nessie cradled in her other arm.

"I want you to come, love. I _need_ you to come. Both of you. I don't think I could do it without you." I kissed her hand and looked up at her. "Please, love?"

"Alright, Edward. You know I can't say no when you dazzle me, right?" she asked, a dazed smile on her face.

"I wasn't trying to, but yes, I do know that, love," I said, smiling at her. She smiled back, and I wrapped my arm around her waist as we walked into the airport.

When we finally got outside the busy airport, we climbed into our rental car quickly, an Audi R8 V10 _**(A/N: link on profile)**_. It was very fast and I wish I could have enjoyed the ride a bit more, but I was to damn nervous.

Bella spent the entire ride encouraging and comforting me, this was much harder than I thought it would be. You didn't have to be an empath to know that I was almost as nervous now as I had been on the day Bella and I got married, or the weeks leafing up to the standoff with the Volturi.

Bella had taken her shield down, so the conversation was silent, except for a few nervous sighs on my part. She slipped a few times and let it snap back in place, but just being in her mind for a few minutes was highly enlightening for me.

When we reached the old cemetery, the big wrought iron gate was closed and locked. There was a little hut off to the side, and the human in it was asleep. I guess that not many people came to here, seeing as the bodies that occupied the ground here were all over or close to a century old.

Walking up to the window, I tapped gently to get the man sleeping in the chair to wake up. He jumped and looked around frantically before seeing me at the window. He grumbled about kids who have no respect for their elders who need more sleep as he got up and opened the door.

"What do you kids want?" he asked after he opened the door and saw Bella and Nessie standing behind me.

"I'm sorry for disturbing you sir, but I've been doing some research on my family and I found out that I have some relatives buried here. I was wondering if my family and I could go and find them? And if so could you tell us where they are?" I asked.

"I guess, kid. But I need your names and the names of the graves you're looking for."

"I'm looking for Edward Mason Sr., Elizabeth Mason, and Edward Mason Jr.," I told him. "They died in 1918."

"And your names?" The guy sounded bored out of his head, and his thoughts echoed that. He was hardly paying attention to me.

"I'm Anthony Cullen, and this is my beautiful wife Marie and our adopted daughter, my niece, Carlie," I said. Before we left Forks we had agreed to use our middle names while we were here, to avoid getting traced easily.

"Aren't you both to young to be married kid?" the caretaker asked.

"No. We're both twenty," I said.

"Fair enough, kid. The Masons are buried in one of the older parts of the lot. Just follow the road to the right all the way to the end. They're right under their big marble cross; you can't miss it, it says _Mason_ on it."

"Thank you," I said, turning and leading Bella back to the car, my arm around her waist.

The caretaker unlocked the rusty padlock from the gate and it swung open with a loud creak. I drove through, and he closed the gate behind us, taking the padlock with him into the office.

We drove in silence, taking the curves in the road slower than I wanted to because of the headstones crowed as close to the road as possible. I saw a few of the death dates as we drove past; every single one I saw said 1918.

I shuddered slightly at the idea that I might have seen these people on the street, talked to them at a party or something, and they were all dead because of a disease that should have killed me too. I was forever grateful to Carlisle for making the decision to change me though; if he hadn't I would be six feet under with my parents and I would never have met Bella and we never would have gotten the beautiful little girl perched in Bella's lap.

Bella had seen my shudder, and she grabbed one of my hands off of the steering wheel and rubbed soothing circles into the skin on the back of it.

"It's okay, Edward. You don't have to do this; we can still turn back."

"No, I want to do this," I told her. I lifted our intertwined hands to my lips and kissed her hand lightly.

When we were as close as we could get to the big, ivy-covered white cross, I parked and got out, walking around quickly to open the door for Bella. I was already breathing harder than necessary at the sight of the cross with my human last name carved onto it in elegant script.

My Bella set Renesmee on the ground so she could wrap her arms around my waist as we walked the short distance to the three headstones set into the ground at the base of the cross.

I fell to my knees in between the middle headstone and the headstone farthest to the left, forcing myself to look down and read what was engraved there:

_Elizabeth Anne Mason_

_1878-1918_

_A loving wife and mother_

_God bless her soul_

_Edward Anthony Mason Sr._

_1873-1918_

_A strong husband and father_

_God bless his soul_

I was vaguely aware of Bella's warm arms wrapped around my neck and shoulders as my body shook with tearless sobs. There was an almost unbearable heat gripping my side—Renesmee.

"Do you know who's buried here sweetie?" I heard Bella ask her softly. Her head bobbed on my shoulder and she whispered "Daddy's momma and daddy. My Grandma Lizzie and Grandpa Ed."

"That's right sweetheart," I managed to say through my sobs as I wrapped one arm around her blazing heat and placed my other hand over top of one of Bella's. "I wish you were able to meet them; they would have loved you so much, Nessie. They would have loved to meet my beautiful family.

"God, Bella, they would have loved you. Mother loved the classics, just like you do. She would have loved to know that I found someone so right for me. She worried that I would grow old and die without ever knowing a woman's love. And Father would have loved you for your spirit. He always said it would take a special woman to love me, I was so hardheaded.

"I wish Carlisle could have saved them too. I wish… I wish…" My voice trailed off into new sobs as I reached one hand out to trace the letters carved into the stone, committing the feeling of them to memory.

"I wish I could have met them, Edward. I want to know the people who brought you into existence, who allowed us to create a child of our own to love for eternity," my Bella whispered in my ear. I nodded, turning my face so that my nose brushed against her cheek, unable to speak through the dry sobs wracking my body.

"It's okay, Edward… it's okay. I understand. Go ahead and cry… it's okay…" Bella crooned in my ear. What did I do to deserve such an understanding wife?

"I miss them…so much…I didn't realize…how much… until now…"

"It's okay, Edward. Let it out baby."

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a picture envelope. There were two different pictures, each one with a double in the envelope and a third copy in a box on it's way to New Hampshire.

The sepia ones were taken a few months before the Spanish influenza struck. My face was much softer and obviously human and there was a bored look in my eyes. The same bored look was on my parent's faces, and we were very stiff and posed.

The color pictures were much more recent, taken two weeks ago. Bella had her arms wrapped around my neck, with her lips pressed to my cheek. I held Renesmee in my lap, and she had her head turned around so she could see Bella and me. My eyes were bright and happy, full of love for my family. There was a smile on my face, and I remembered how big Bella's smile had been after the flash had gone off. It was one of my favorite pictures of my family, second only to a few of the pictures taken immediately following Bella's rebirth as a vampire.

I silently handed one of the pictures of me with my parents to Bella. She took one look at it and gasped.

"Edward…you were so handsome, especially for a human," she said, kissing me softly.

"Thank you, love," I said. "That's one of the only pictures I have of me as a human. I'll show you the others when we reach New Hampshire."

Nessie's hand pressed into my neck, and she showed me an image of the pictures. _Why, Daddy?_ she thought.

"Since I couldn't be there for their funerals, and they couldn't be here to see my beautiful family, this is my little contribution to the funeral arrangements—about eighty decades late," I told them. I reached over with one hand to my mother's headstone and worked my fingers between it and the ground, lifting it up.

Taking one of each of the pictures in one hand, I kissed each one before laying them on the dirt where the headstone had been not five seconds ago, and where they would stay until they turned to dust. I set the headstone back on the dirt and erased the groves in the turf where my fingers had dug into it. I repeated my actions with my father's headstone.

"Good-bye, Father. Good-bye, Mother," I said, caressing each stone gently, my voice shaking again.

Bella dropped to her knees next to me so she could wrap her arms around my chest. My arms found her waist, and I sobbed onto her shoulder. Nessie wormed her way in between us, and stroked my face soothingly, not showing me anything.

"It's okay, Daddy," she said. Nessie preferred to say what she needed to say through her gift, and only spoke out loud when she really wanted to say something special.

"Thank you, Renesmee. My sweet little girl. The best daughter a father could ever have," I said.

"I couldn't have come here with out my two favorite girls in the world. Thank you." I smiled weakly through the now silent sobs that shook my body.

"You're welcome, Edward," my Bella said.

We stayed like that for a few minutes, until my sobs stilled.

I pulled away from our embrace slightly so I could see their faces.

"I love you both. So much," I said. I kissed Renesmee on the nose before I kissed my Bella on her lips. It started out chaste, but once my lips met hers I couldn't bring myself to pull away.

The kiss would have turned passionate but we were aware of Renesmee's presence, made more known to us when she said "Ew!"

Bella and I laughed and pulled away from each other. Bella hugged Nessie to her chest and buried her face in Nessie's bronze curls in an effort to muffle her laughter.

I have seen in many men's minds that they think they have the best wife or best daughter in the world but they were wrong. _I_ have the best wife _and_ daughter in the world and the women and girls I have seen in those other men's minds don't even come close to my Bella and Renesmee.

When we had all stopped laughing Bella nodded towards the headstone on my right, the one with my name on it. I followed her gaze and read what was engraved on it:

_Edward Anthony Mason Jr._

_1901-1918_

_A fine son and good friend_

_May peace find his body wherever it may lie_

As I expected, it was strange to look at my own grave. I felt like I was letting go of the last string holding me to my human existence that ended eighty-eight years ago.

I briefly contemplated the life I could have had had I not contracted the Spanish flu. I would have snuck off to join up for the military and quite possibly died in the Great War. If I didn't die, I would have eventually found a girl who made me happy and we would have had some children and grown old together. I would have gotten a job to support my family. If that had been the case I really would be six feet under right now instead of kneeling on top of the soil.

As much as that life might appeal to most people, I could not bring myself to want it. If I had not nearly died of the Spanish flu the girl I married would most defiantly not be my Bella, and our children—no matter that I could have had more than one—would not be nearly as special as Renesmee is.

Seeing my headstone only made me more grateful that Carlisle had done what my mother asked him to do and saved my life.

Bella moved her hand to caress the worn letters of the stone that made up my name.

"What are you thinking, love?" I asked her.

"It's really strange, when you're sitting next to your husband who is perfectly healthy, looking at his grave. But I wouldn't have it any other way," she said, leaning over and pecking me on the cheek.

"Me either, my Bella," I said, pulling her into my arms and kissing her hair. "Me either."

_A/N: So how do you like my first one shot? I really like it and think it's incredibly sweet how Bella is so understanding of Edward's breakdown. And the moment between Edward and Renesmee is one of my favorite moments that I've written._

_Reviews are always welcome guys! :D_

—_Kimmy Cullen_


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